My website is endritualabuse.org

I have attempted to get information from Wikipedia on why my website was blacklisted and to get it de-blacklisted. I have been stonewalled on both counts.

Since February, 2008, on Wikipedia’s page on “Satanic Ritual Abuse,” Wikipedia’s staff has been suppressing and deleting credible posts from credible sources (including my posts- I am a licensed California psychologist) that have documented substantial criminal and psychological evidence of criminal ritual abuse, and instead has completely discounted the existence of ritual abuse. As of July 27, 2009, Wikipedia’s page on “Satanic ritual abuse” begins as follows: “Satanic ritual abuse (SRA, sometimes known as ritual abuse, ritualistic abuse, organised abuse, sadistic abuse and other variants) refers to a moral panic that originated in the United States in the 1980s, spreading throughout the country and eventually to many parts of the world, before subsiding in the late 1990s.”

Wikipedia has now escalated its censorship of all information supporting the existence of ritual abuse by blacklisting four important websites about ritual abuse on July 18, 2009.

I find Wikipedia’s history of treatment of this issue dangerous to victims and survivors of ritual abuse and dangerous to victims of child abuse in general.

An account of my correspondence with Wikipedia on this matter is pasted in below.

This correspondence clearly demonstrates that Wikipedia has stonewalled my polite attempts to communicate with them on this issue. When I persisted, Wikipedia directed me to send a letter via registered mail to the Wikimedia Foundation for comment,

However, when Wanda Karriker, Ph.D., on October 15, 2008, sent a registered letter to Wikipedia concerning Wikipedia’s treatment of the subject of ritual abuse, she received no response. I also include the correspondence by Dr. Karriker below.

Dr. Karriker is one of four authors of the Extreme Abuse Survey. The website for the Extreme Abuse Survey, extreme-abuse-survey.net, is one of the four websites that Wikipedia blacklisted on July 18, 2009.

It is clear that Wikipedia refuses to consider any documentation about the existence of ritual abuse.

Wikipedia claims that its mission is: “The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally.”

Wikipedia claims that its vision is: “Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That’s our commitment.”

I find these claims by Wikipedia to be untrue, based on its censorship of the evidence of ritual abuse. I also believe that Wikipedia is recklessly putting child abuse victims in danger by its treatment of this issue. I deem Wikipedia to be irresponsible, unethical, and to be in violation of its own statutes.

I urge individuals and organizations to disseminate this article, including freely re-posting it to other websites, with the condition that it be posted in its entirety with nothing added or removed from the article .

Ellen P. Lacter, Ph.D., Licensed Psychologist in California, USA

Account of My Correspondence with Wikipedia on this Matter

On July 18, 2009, at about 9:30pm Pacific time, Wikipedia blacklisted the following important websites on ritual abuse:

I am a California licensed psychologist and have just noticed that my website, endritualabuse.org, has been blacklisted, as well as the websites, extreme-abuse-survey.net and ritualabuse.us , all of which provide information about ritual abuse. These three resources have been of tremendous value to victims of ritual abuse and to therapists and clergy helping victims. I cannot fathom any legitimate basis for Wikipedia prohibiting access to these websites. There is absolutely no basis to suspect any wrongdoing or criminal activity on any of these three websites. These websites are dedicated to helping victims of violent crime. There is no basis to deny that such crimes occur. Criminal convictions of crimes involving ritual elements are well-documented, such as the May 2006 conviction of Father Gerald Robinson for the 1980 murder of Sister Margaret Ann Pahl. I personally correspond with a few hundred legitimate psychotherapists, internationally, who treat these victims. I urge Wikipedia to quickly reverse the blacklisting of these websites.
Ellen P. Lacter, Ph.D. tl|Done/archives/July/2009/Proposed removals|archived Ellenlacter (talk) 00:52, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

“Typically, we do not remove domains from the spam blacklist in response to site-owners’ requests. Instead, we de-blacklist sites when trusted, high-volume editors request the use of blacklisted links because of their encyclopedic value in support of our encyclopedia pages. If such an editor asks to use your blacklisted links, I’m sure the request will be carefully considered. Equally Wikipedia is not a soapbox nor is it a place to to promote your sites”[20][21][22].–Hu12 (talk) 17:42, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

On 7/21/2009, at 10:10pm, Pacific Time, I sent the letter below to info-en-o@wikimedia.org:

Dear Wikipedia,
I see that my website has been blacklisted on Wikipedia. My website is endritualabuse.org. I understand from your website that blacklisting happens in response to spam. I read this: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Spam_blacklist/About I have never spammed Wikipedia. In fact, I only posted to Wikipedia once or twice, on the page on satanic ritual abuse, perhaps a year ago (now deleted). I posted with my real name, as I do everywhere. I have nothing to hide from anyone.

I have read the Wikipedia page on blacklisting, and still do not understand the process. Please help me understand the basis of blacklisting a website. Does this happen when Wikipedia believes that someone is sending spam from a website? Can spam be sent from a website? I thought spam could only be sent from an email address. My email address is ellenlacter@earthlink.net. I have only one email address (the same one since I went online)

My website is mine and mine alone. If you believe that a spammer is co-owner of my website, I can assure you that this is not true. I am a licensed psychologist and am very cautious and above-board in everything I do. I am not violating any Wikipedia guidelines, any net ethics, other ethics, or laws.

Please help me understand this process. Some people have told me that they are quite disturbed that my site is blacklisted. I cannot even explain to them why this happened.
Please help me understand.

As of 7/24/2009, I had received no response. So, on 7/24/2009, at 6:37pm Pacific Time, I sent the letter below to info-en-o@wikimedia.org :

Dear Wikipedia,

On 7/21/2009, at 10:10pm, Pacific Time, I sent the letter below to info-en-o@wikimedia.org It is now 6:37 pm, Pacific time, on 7/24, and I have received no response. I note that on this page, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:AN/I#unproductive_editing_by_a_possible_sockpuppet, “Versageek” wrote on 20:37 on July 24, 2009: “I expect we’ll see an increase in this sort of activity, they are upset because we’ve spam blacklisted a number of domains related to SRA that were being used to spam. –Versageek 20:37, 24 July 2009 (UTC)” It appears that this comment may relate to my letter below asking about why my website has been blacklisted. Yet, no one has done me the courtesy of explaining the basis for my website being blacklisted.
I request that my query below be given to the appropriate party at Wikipedia and that I receive the courtesy of a response. If I do not receive a response, I will have no choice but to take additional steps to attempt to reverse Wikipedia’s censorship of my website.

Sincerely, Ellen P. Lacter, Ph.D..

On 7/24/2009, at 8:24pm Pacific time, I received an email response from “External links ”

This was a very short response. I must paraphrase it to avoid any copyright infringement that may apply. The response stated that my request to de-blacklist my website was declined. It explained that Wikipedia does not de-blacklist websites from its spam blacklist in response to requests by website owners, but that Wikipedia de-blacklists websites when trusted, high-volume editors request use of the blacklisted websites because they are valuable to Wikipedia in its projects, and if such an editor did so, they would consider removing my website from the blacklist.

On 7/25/2009, at 10:58am, I replied with the following email to “External links “:

July 25, 2009
Dear Mr. _____,
You have not answered any of my questions about why my website has been blacklisted, including:
1. Please help me understand the basis of blacklisting a website.
2. Does this happen when Wikipedia believes that someone is sending spam from a website?
3. Can spam be sent from a website?
4. I am not violating any Wikipedia guidelines, any net ethics, other ethics, or laws. Please help me understand this process.

Instead, you “decline” to de-blacklist my website, and you tell me that [paraphrased: Wikipedia does not de-blacklist websites from its spam blacklist in response to requests by website owners, but that Wikipedia de-blacklists websites when trusted, high-volume editors request use of the blacklisted websites because they are valuable to Wikipedia in its projects, and if such an editor did so, they would consider removing my website from the blacklist.]
Very few websites would meet this criterion: “trusted, high-volume editors” use them to “support” your projects.
Millions of websites, most websites, are subject-specific, so would not be used by high-volume editors.
Wikipedia articles are subject-specific as well, and only refer to a few websites each.
These other millions of subject-specific websites are not censored by Wikipedia.
Instead, Wikipedia is selectively censoring a number of important websites about criminal ritual abuse, much of it of children.
Since February, 2008, on Wikipedia’s page on “Satanic Ritual Abuse”, Wikipedia’s editors have been suppressing and deleting credible posts from credible sources (including my posts- I am a licensed California psychologist) that documented substantial criminal and psychological evidence of criminal ritual abuse, and instead completely discounts the existence of ritual abuse. Today, July 25, 2009, at 11:00 am, Wikipedia’s page on “Satanic ritual abuse,” begins as follows: “Satanic ritual abuse (SRA, sometimes known as ritual abuse, ritualistic abuse, organised abuse, sadistic abuse and other variants) refers to a moral panic that originated in the United States in the 1980s, spreading throughout the country and eventually to many parts of the world, before subsiding in the late 1990s.”

This past week, Wikipedia staff has blacklisted a number of the most important websites about ritual abuse. And now [name of Wikipedia representative who emailed me], of Wikipedia staff, at info-en-l@wikimedia.org refuses to provide me with any basis for censoring my website.
This is an escalation in Wikipedia staff’s suppression of evidence of criminal ritual abuse of children, an act that does great harm to victims by reducing their likelihood of being believed, protected, and helped.

I will not attempt to do the impossible, that is, to attempt to find or develop “trusted, high-volume editors” who “support” your projects, to support the de-blacklisting of a subject-specific website.

Instead, I hope to receive a response from Wikipedia that demonstrates a complete reversal of its censorship and suppression of information on this subject.

In the absence of such a response, I will widely circulate among mental health professionals, law enforcement professionals, and victims of ritual abuse and other child abuse, child abuse advocates and activists, and the general public, my correspondence with Wikipedia on this matter, and Wikipedia’s correspondence or lack of correspondence with me, and will publish this correspondence on my website and permit others to publish it on their websites as well.

Thank You, Ellen P. Lacter, Ph.D.

.

On 7/25/2009, at 8:44pm Pacific time, I received an email response from “External links “:

This was a shorter response. I again paraphrase it to avoid any possible copyright infringement. The Wikipedia representative said he was not a staff member of Wikipedia or the Wikimedia Foundation, and that he did not speak on behalf of Wikipedia. He said that if I wished to contact the Wikimedia Foundation for comment, I should do so by registered mail, and provided the address: Wikimedia Foundation Inc., P.O. Box 78350, San Francisco, CA 94107-8350 USA

On 7/25/2009, at 10:10pm Pacific time, I wrote the following email to “External links “:

Dear Mr. _____,
You wrote: [paraphrased: that you are not a staff member of Wikipedia or the Wikimedia Foundation, and that you did speak on behalf of Wikipedia. You said that if I wished to contact the Wikimedia Foundation for comment, I should do so by registered mail, and provided the address:
Wikimedia Foundation Inc.,
P.O. Box 78350,
San Francisco,
CA 94107-8350 USA]

I find no logic in your statement that you are not speaking on behalf of Wikipedia.
You are the person who responded when I wrote to:
Your previous email used the terms, “We”, and “our”, meaning Wikipedia, when you wrote [paraphrased: that "we" do not de-blacklist websites from "our" spam blacklist in response to requests by website owners, but that "we" de-blacklist websites when trusted, high-volume editors request use of the blacklisted websites because they are valuable to "our" projects]
It is obvious that you were vested by Wikipedia with the authority to decline my request to de-blacklist my website!
Now, you are claiming you have no authority and are directing me to send registered letters to Wikipedia. My website was removed without a registered letter to me.
You refused to de-blacklist my website without a registered letter to me.
I believe my correspondence has already been shared with individuals in authority at Wikipedia.
I will not engage in the inconvenience of writing registered letters to right his wrong.
I will proceed in other directions to right this wrong.

Thank You, Ellen Lacter, Ph.D.

On July 25, at 11:19pm Pacific time, I received an email response from “External links ”
This was shorter response, slightly longer than the earlier two responses. I again paraphrase it to avoid any possible copyright infringement.

This email stated that he was a volunteer email respondent and editor of Wikipedia. He said that he can work with other editors at Wikipedia to help to resolve issues involving the Wikipedia website. He also stated that he had no authority to make public statements on behalf of Wikipedia. He stated that the email response team always tries its best to help or to explain problems encountered with Wikipedia project. However, he said that I had made it impossible for him to help me by making ultimatums, and that there was nothing more he could do if I insist on making threats.

On 7/26/2009, at 12:06am Pacific time, I wrote the following email to “External links “:

Dear Mr. _____,
Wikipedia blacklisted my website with no explanation on 7/18/2009.
On 7/21/2009, I sought an explanation from info-en-o@wikimedia.org.
I was ignored.
I politely requested a response again on 7/24/2009.
On 7/24/2009, I finally received a response from you that ignored my questions about why my website had been blacklisted and that denied my request to have my website de-blacklisted.
On 7/25/2009, I again wrote to you asking for a response to my unanswered questions.
Later, on 7/25/2009, you wrote back saying that you are not a staff member of Wikipedia, nor do you speak on its behalf, and that I should correspond with Wikipedia via registered mail.
I replied on 7/25/2009, that I find no logic in your statement that you are not speaking on behalf of Wikipedia, that I believe my correspondence has already been shared with individuals in authority at Wikipedia, that I will not write registered letters to Wikipedia, and that I will proceed in other directions to right this wrong.
Now you claim of yourself that, [paraphrased: you are a volunteer email respondent and editor of Wikipedia, and that you can work with other editors at Wikipedia to help to resolve issues involving the Wikipedia website. You also stated that you had no authority to make public statements on behalf of Wikipedia. You stated that the email response team always tries its best to help or to explain problems encountered with Wikipedia project. However, you said that I had made it impossible for you to help me by making ultimatums, and that there was nothing more you could do if I insist on making threats.] I made three attempts at polite communication with Wikipedia. You and/or your email response team stonewalled me three times.
Now you portray Wikipedia’s “email response team” as doing its [paraphrased: best to help or to explain problems encountered with Wikipedia project.] And you now claim that it is me who made communication impossible by falsely accusing me of making ultimatums and threatening you. My statement that, “I will proceed in other directions to right this wrong”, is not an ultimatum. It is a statement of my intention to proceed in other directions than to communicate with Wikipedia. I have made no threats.
All of my actions have been, and will remain, completely legal. On the other hand, I believe that Wikipedia’s censorship of my website with no stated justification, and with no explanation to me despite my three polite requests, may not be legal.

Ellen P. Lacter, Ph.D.

Certified Mail from Wanda Karriker, Ph.D., to Wikipedia, to Which Wikipedia Never Replied

Below is a copy of the email that I recently sent to you. I am enclosing a copy of Daniel Bryant’s email reply which states I should contact you by certified mail. Please see highlighted section of this letter for my explanation for why I find it necessary to bypass editorial norms with my complaint.

After the email copied below is an Addendum to serve as another example of why I think it would be pointless for me (although others have done this in the past) to pursue this complaint through editorial dispute resolution.

I am a retired psychologist who spent my career working with both child and adult survivors of ideologically motivated crimes including satanic ritual abuse (SRA).

I do not believe that the Wikimedia Foundation knowingly chooses to empower pedophiles through your Wikipedia pages; therefore, I am making you aware of the Wikipedia entry: “Satanic Ritual Abuse” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanic_ritual_abuse . When children disclose to trusted persons that they have been physically and sexually tortured by groups of pedophiles using satanic garb and accoutrements, it is reasonable to assume that those persons would turn to the search engines to learn more about such bizarre reports. Google currently lists Wikipedia as the top-ranked source for the term “satanic ritual abuse.”

Because of this entry’s heavily-biased portrayal that crimes conducted in the “context of occult or ‘satanic’ rituals . . . are now generally regarded as having been part of a moral panic . . . with only a minority of believers giving any credence to the existence of SRA” (from opening paragraph), I fear that the bodies, minds, and souls of terrified children – who may under threat of death tell about the perverted acts of their perpetrators – are at stake.

In the past, I have made edits to try to render this article more balanced and my edits have all been deleted. I have not chosen to go to the Discussion page to argue my points because a review of the discussion archives for the last five years shows that such an effort would be pointless. In reading the archives, I discovered that often new editors, who try to balance the entry with scholarly references that offer support for the existence of satanic ritual abuse, have been treated disrespectfully by editors who appear associated with an extremely skeptical point of view reflected by this recent comment on the SRA Discussion Page.

“SRA is not a topic of mainstream interest and the page should not place any emphasis on source and text that gives the impression that SRA is perceived as anything except a moral panic. WLU (t) (c) (rules – simple rules) 23:32, 9 October 2008.” (from SRA Discussion Page).

Please make the Wikimedia Board of Directors aware of my concern. I deeply appreciate anything that you and the members of Wikimedia’s Board of Directors can do to assure that Wikipedia does not empower pedophiles by allowing extremely biased entries such as the SRA entry to remain in your encyclopedia.

Sincerely,
Wanda Karriker, Ph.D.
[Address omitted]

http://extreme-abuse-survey.net

Addendum: A more recent comment on the SRA Discussion page illustrates the POV of the page for the last five years:

“Just because everybody can edit wikipedia doesn’t mean every single position is treated sympathetically. SRA is not, because it’s considered a bullshit moral panic. WLU (t) (c) (rules – simple rules) 16:39, 14 October 2008 (UTC)”

This hardly appears to be a neutral, unbiased stance for a prominent editor. Indeed, a review of the Discussion archives shows that persons who have offered documentation that SRA is a proven phenomenon routinely have not been treated sympathetically.

On November 2, 2008, when Dr. Karriker had still received no response from Wikipedia to her letter, she circulated the rebuttal below on various internet lists.

The Truth about Satanic Ritual Abuse

A Rebuttal to Wikipedia’s Portrayal of Satanic Ritual Abuse
November 2, 2008
By Wanda Karriker, Ph.D.

Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA) is NOT a moral panic.
SRA is a subset of Ritual Abuse (RA).
Ritual abuse is defined in the Dictionary of Psychology as “A method of control of people of all ages consisting of physical, sexual, and psychological mistreatment through the use of rituals” (Corsini, 1999, p. 848).

Young, Sacks, Braun & Watkins (1991) use the term “satanic ritual abuse” to describe ritual abuse associated with satanic worship. Becker and Fröhling (1998) caution that (1) a ritual can be staged to make a victim believe that the ideological background is real, i.e., a child is made to think she has murdered a baby as a sacrifice to Satan or another deity, (2) that whether or not a ritual is staged, the victim is bound into the real or faked belief system of the perpetrator(s).

A June 2007 review of psychological and medical peer-reviewed journals yielded 47 empirical studies of the RA phenomenon.

Bottoms, Shaver, and Goodman (1996) indicate that the majority of surveyed therapists who have treated at least one alleged survivor believe their clients’ claims of ritual abuse. Schmuttermaier and Veno (1999) report that none of the counselors in their Australian study believe that their clients intentionally fabricated claims of ritual abuse.

Bottoms et al. constructed a prototype of 386 cases from the decade of the 1980′s based on the particular features of abuse that clinical psychologists had heard from their clients. They found the following:

The most common feature of ritual cases was “forced sex.” The next most common was “repeated practices.” . . . Also common, however, were abuse by a member of a cult-like group; abuse related to symbols associated with the devil; abuse involving sacrifice or torture of animals; abuse involving excrement or blood; and abuse involving knives, altars, and candles. . . . The least common features of ritualistic cases were abuse related to the breeding of infants for ritual sacrifice, abuse involving cannibalism, child pornography, and amnesic periods or preoccupation with dates. (p. 10)

Young et al. (1991) describe 37 adult patients, all diagnosed with multiple personality disorder (MPD) or dissociative disorder not otherwise specified who reported similar abuses by satanic cults. Apparently, most of the data were collected while the patients were in treatment with the authors. The article lists ten types of ritual abuse and the percentage of subjects who reported each type: sexual abuse (100%), witnessing and receiving physical abuse/torture (100%), witnessing animal mutilation/killings (100%), death threats (100%), forced drug usage (97%), witnessing and forced participation in human adult and infant sacrifice (83%), forced cannibalism (81%), marriage to Satan (78%), buried alive in coffins or graves (72%), forced impregnation and sacrifice of own child (60%).

Shaffer and Cozolino (1992) interviewed 19 women and one man who reported types and aftereffects of ritualistic abuse consistent with those reported by Young et al. All subjects reported witnessing the murder of animals, infants, children and/or adults. All reported suicidal ideation and half reported suicide attempts. The majority reported severe and sadistic forms of abuse by multiple perpetrators. Some reported continued recontact/revictimization into their adult years.

Satanic Ritual Abuse is an international phenomenon. Van der Hart, Boon, and Heijtmajer (1997) describe reports of SRA in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Norway, Spain, South Africa, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States; Kent (1997), in Canada; and Schmuttermaier and Veno (1999), in Australia. An organization, Advocates for Survivors of Child Abuse (2006), also includes reports of SRA in Australia.

In Ritual Abuse in the Twenty-First Century, German journalist, Ulla Fröhling (2008), writes about her study that was published as a book in 1996 titled Vater unser in der Holle (Our Father Who Art in Hell). Reprinted in 2008, it is about the life of a German woman with a background of satanic ritual abuse:

The book had an impact: victims found a corroboration of their experiences in it, and doctors and trauma therapists who work with dissociative patients use it for workshops and training courses. A parliamentary inquiry examined the topic of ritual abuse, as did the Parliamentary select committee “Sects and Psycho-Groups,” which mentions the book several times in its concluding report. Three surveys on ritual abuse were carried out. Together with Michaela Huber’s textbook Multiple Personlichkeiten (Multiple Personalities), it changed the German public’s perception of one of the darkest areas of organized violence. (p. 355)

Becker (2008) reported unpublished data from one of the above mentioned surveys, a 1997 study by Froeling and German psychotherapist Michaela Huber. Of 354 cases in treatment for the aftereffects of ritual abuse by 126 therapists and counselors from 61 locations in Germany, 58% reported that they had been ritually abused in a satanic cult.

Results from the 2007 International Extreme Abuse Surveys offered in English and German indicate that ritual abuse (including SRA) is widespread. More than 2000 persons from 40 countries responded to one or more of the surveys for adult survivors of extreme abuse in childhood (EAS), for professionals who work with survivors who report extreme abuse (P-EAS), and for caregivers of children who disclose ritual abuse and its associated mind control. SRA related data are reported by Becker, Karriker, Overkamp, and Rutz (2008):

On the EAS, 543 respondents reported that they were ritually abused in a satanic cult: 360 from the United States, 33 from Canada, 97 from Europe, and 53 from other countries. (p. 41)

Respondents on the P-EAS were asked to report the approximate number of their adult clients who had reported memories consistent with the abuses/tortures listed. Of 219 professionals who responded to the item: “Ritual abuse in a satanic cult,” 20 reported none, 56 reported 1, 74 reported between 2 and 10; 28 reported between 11 and 20; 41 reported more than 20. (p. 44)

On the C-EAS, 55 caregivers reported that the child or children under their care had alleged a satanic cult as their perpetrator group. (p. 43)

Two web-based archives show legal proceedings and convictions related to SRA and other forms of RA.

For more psychological and legal evidence on the existence of SRA and other forms of RA see:

Brief Synopsis of the Literature on the Existence of Ritualistic Abuse
Publications on Ritual Abuse and Mind Control in 2008
Proof that Ritual Abuse Exists
Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA) is NOT a moral panic.